


Touch

by pirategirljack



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: 12 monkeys theme week 2016, Casserole, F/M, fill-in fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:18:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7485909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>12 Monkeys Theme Week 2016 - Day 4 - Casserole!</p><p>Hey, look, it's only kind of sad this time!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

As a general rule, they didn't touch. In the actual reality of living in the same (not huge) space for almost a year, they touched often, but the intentional touches were rare and Cole remembered each one. Their lives were hard and marked by lying and pretending and denying, and each touch was a small oasis in the doom, a tiny spark of something like hope.

1.  
He'd taken her hand when she first arrived and led her to their room, even though she knew the way. He'd wanted to hug her, he'd thought he'd never see her again and then there she was, splintered out moments before there was nothing to splinter with, standing before him and saying she didn't want to be afraid, and there was something fragile and tentative between them. It would have been so easy to just scoop her up and hold her--it had been easy in 2017, even though he had never done anything like it before, but here, it had been hard. She was so tense, like a spooked deer, so he'd just slowly raised his hand, taken her's. and hoped his gentle squeeze conveyed everything, and kept hold of her all the way up the elevator and into the room. They paused a moment as he closed the door, and then she pulled away.

2.  
Every day they worked at the factory--which was literally almost every day--he got off the bus first and held his hand up to help her down. There was a railing, and he'd seen her run in worse heels than these, she could have gotten down on her own, but he wanted to be useful. He wanted to know, especially on their worst days, that there was something she could rely on him for. He wanted to go to work with the feel of her hand in his. And on the good days, she smiled at him as she took the last two steps, and that was worth all the days when she didn't look at him at all.

3.  
He'd gotten hurt at work, something went off a rail and flew into the side of his head when he was looking elsewhere. He'd woken in the infirmary, and Cassie had come from the office to take him home. Later, she said she knew he'd be fine, but when she arrived, she'd looked panicked and he'd smiled at her like and idiot--because of the concussion, he'd claimed, also later. Once he was home, she'd insisted on checking the bandage, her fingers sure and clinical, but her face worried and wincing every time he sucked in a breath. Her hands in his hair. Her body close. She wore a nice perfume in the 50s, one she hadn't worn in the 60s or her own time, or any of the other times they'd shared, and it surrounded him. When she was done, she’d let her fingers drift down his cheek just a little, as if she didn't notice what she was doing, and it was like old times in the bookstore when she'd patched him up over and over. A small knot loosened in his chest and another drew tighter: he'd missed this; it wasn't like this anymore.

4.  
They'd run out of leads again and she was frustrated, standing by the window with spring rain pouring down outside, her arms folded over her robe. He thought she was mad--Cassie was good at being mad--but she'd said something and he heard the crackle of tears in her voice, so he'd gotten up from his spot on the couch and moved nearer. Anger he could handle; he had enough of his own to match it, and it was safe and almost normal by this point. But tears always undid him. He was glad they were rarer than the times she touched him. She didn't look away from the window, but she also didn't move away from him. So he took a chance and put his hand on her back, flat and warm and as comforting as he could make it. She shook, for just a second, and then sighed, and some of the tension went out of her shoulders. She'd grown thinner; he could feel her shoulder blades through the cloth. “We’ll figure this out,” he said, and he meant more than just the case.

5.  
Cole’s birthday was in the summer. Neither he nor Ramse knew which day, so on his paperwork, he'd said June 15th. He woke on that day to a huge stack of pancakes on the coffee table before him, and Cassie had smiled and shared them with him. She laid her hand on his shoulder on her way to get dressed, and had left it there long enough for him to turn his face to follow her, before she'd let go. Cole had brought a cake home that night, a little chocolate one just big enough for two, and they'd eaten it without cutting it, sitting on the floor. When she was ready for bed, she'd laid her hand on his head as she passed behind him, and said “happy birthday”, and he'd almost jumped up to hug her, or kiss her, or follow her to bed. instead, he thanked her, and listened as she moved around the room until she turned out the lights, remembering her touch.

6.  
He'd asked her to dance once, after they got a radio and he found a good song, and to his surprised, she did.

7.  
They laid on the roof, shoulder to shoulder on a blanket, with other couples from the building, to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July. He'd never seen a fireworks show before; it sounded like a gun battle or heavy artillery, but Cassie said it was supposed to. It was about the war for independence, and he liked that idea, of fighting to have the life you wanted. It was dazzling, but not as dazzling as her face, lit up in color. She caught him watching and pushed his chin with one finger until he looked at the sky again, but she didn't move her shoulder away from his.

8.  
She held his hand in the factory, during the paradox. Somehow, in all the tumult, she found his hand and held on for dear life as he tried to shield her from the blast and failed, and he thought, if this is my last memory, at least it's this one. At least it's Cassie.

9.  
When she was in a coma, he felt like he was dying, visiting every day and no change. It was too much like 2017, too much like watching her die again, and it was his fault. He'd picked the wrong person, he'd been fooled, it had been he who didn't shoot when he should have. He kissed her forehead where he had the day she died, and he'd left to give her a second chance.

And then she'd found him. She'd kissed him. She'd held him in her arms all night long, and the world had never felt so right. 

Cole woke first. Eleven months of living with her had taught him that he usually did; Scav habits died hard, especially when reinforced by actual work that required an early schedule, and he mostly woke with the sun, even now. 

Cassie was beautiful when she slept--she was always beautiful--but asleep, she looked peaceful. She never looked peaceful awake. Most of that was because of him.

Suddenly, Cole didn't know what to expect, and his heart picked up speed too quickly. All the touches cataloged and remembered, polished like stones in his long days away from her, and he'd never dared to hope for this. Not this, that was so close to feeling like a happy ending, not when they'd started with him kidnapping her and progressed through worse and worse.

They were doomed from the start, he'd thought.

But she'd found him.

Would she want to forget last night happened? Would she call this--them--him--a mistake? He'd been called worse, but never by her.

And then slowly, the way she had once before, she opened her eyes. She smiled sleepily across the pillows when she saw him.

Cole reached out a hand, tentatively, and touched her cheek, half afraid she'd disappear like she had in a hundred dreams in all this time they'd been apart, but she didn't. She didn't pull away. She turned into his touch and kissed his palm and scooted closer.

It was the single happiest moment in his life.


End file.
